We are catching up – here is my Open Education News and Stuff from December 13.

Hi everyone!

Hi everyone, and I sure hope the end of your term and year is going well.  I can’t believe 2023 is right around the corner, and I wanted to take a bit of time today to reflect on Open Education at Camosun from the past year.  This is definitely a “my own perspective” piece, but I would love love love to hear from any of you about what Open Education adventures you embarked on this last year (and I know some of you have, ‘cause you are part of my own reflections!!)  Next year also promises some amazing Open Ed excitement, but I’ll give you a snapshot of that at the end of the email.

Open Sustainability Project

Of course, the biggest Open Ed news for Camosun, I think, was the completion of the Open Sustainability project, funded by BCcampus, that started way back in the BC times (2019) and finally ended in spring 2022.  Seven amazing projects were completed, and a lot of things (including an Open Ed survey, an Open Ed Conversation Café, and this email group) were initiated because of the project.  You can remind yourself of all the projects and other amazing outcomes on the eLearning site.

In addition, the project and all the faculty members involved were in the 2022 Showcase. 

Workshops

This spring we ran the second iterations of the Introduction to Open Education and OER workshop, as well as the Introduction to H5P workshop. And two new Open workshops were added to our roster:  Introduction to Open Pedagogy and Redesign your Course to be more Open.  Stay tuned to Spring 2023 as we bring back these four workshops, and add a couple more (in the works:  Introduction to Common Open Tools and Resources, and Introduction to Online Annotation and Collaboration using Hypothes.is)

Meetings

This past term I have been coming into Department/Program meetings to introduce people to Open Education and to see where we might support initiatives.  To date, I have attended six meetings…if I have not visited your department/program yet, please talk to your Chair or Program Lead!!

Interviews and Chats

So far over the past year I have spoken to 30+ faculty members at Camosun doing work with either OER or using freely available materials to support their students with cost-free or cost-reduced course materials.  I have also formally interviewed one of those faculty members, Charlie Molnar in Biology, as well as a librarian and student who worked on an Open Education project together (Sarah and Patsy).  If I have not spoken to you yet about your work in Open Education, I would love to hear from you.  I will be reaching out to more folks in the new year but let me know if you would like to talk!!

Projects

I have been finding out about, and supporting in some ways, some Open Education projects at Camosun.  Some faculty and programs are looking at moving courses to OER/Open Textbooks, some are taking existing materials and putting them in the open for the world, some are working on creating OER or adapting open textbooks to better suit their contexts.  Are you thinking of working on an Open Education project for your SD, or within your program or department group and are looking for help?  Let me know!

And with regards to resources at Camosun, Gwenda Bryan and I are revising the Open Education Research Guide (LibGuide) at Camosun.  We will be launching it during Open Education week (March 6-10) in 2023, so stay tuned!!

Conferences and Courses

Finally, I enrolled in the KPU Professional Program in Open Education this year, and just finished the second course (as did Brian Coey who was also one of our Project faculty).  I also attended a number of conferences and workshops related to Open Education this year, including, of course, the OpenED22 online conference.

Coming up in 2023!

• More conversations and interviews, and more department/program visits.
• More CETL workshops in the spring
• Open Education week events in March (6-10), including I hope another Open Education Conversation Café!  Stay tuned early in the new year for more.
• And most of all, more thinking about the work Camosun already does in Open Education and what we can do more of (and this is not just me thinking…I thank so many of my colleagues in CETL, in the Library, faculty across Camosun, my new Director, so many people doing the work and moving Open Education forward at the college – we want to share your adventures!!)

And that, folks, concludes the Open Education News and Stuff emails for 2022.  I really hope you still enjoy reading these when you have time – I am considering how to make these emails more useful for people and would welcome your suggestions.  And if there is anything you would like to contribute, well I would love to open this up (pun intended) to anyone to contribute to!! hope you all have a wonderful break, get some rest, and come back refreshed for the new year.

Emily